Authors: Heidi Ayarbe
Bets are placed.
Saturday, third round begins and I’ll take bets until noon, giving out a fair dose of hope for Saturday and Sunday bettors.
And Monday, Seth will have another headline for
PB & J
. A scoop only he’ll get.
The house is practically invisible from the road; the cobbled stone driveway curves around leading to the cabin—more like mansion cabin, the giant home hidden behind a screen of old-growth pine trees. The automated radio goes on—four o’clock sharp. It’s overcast—outside, the light is gray-bright.
We got a smattering of rain—a cloudburst that graced the dry foothills with drops of water, flooding the air with the spicy sage smell.
I inhale, grateful for the perfume of the mountains.
The bad thing—leaving footprints. We’re careful to walk on beds of pine needles and avoid stepping in mud.
Josh points to his watch.
I hold up ten fingers times two.
He nods.
After Thursday dance classes, they go to Java Jungle and get smoothies before coming home. It leaves us about forty-five minutes, but we need to be in and out in twenty—just to be on the safe side.
We walk around the side of the house, ignoring the
BEWARE OF DOG
sign. The dog is an arthritic, incontinent bassett hound that can barely move. They leave the back sliding glass door ajar and him lying right next to it every afternoon in the hope he’ll get the energy to relieve himself outside.
We drop a T-bone by his snout. He half wakes up, sniffs the air, attempts a growl, then rests his nose back on the bone, hanging his tongue out to get some of the juices.
“Poor dog.”
“No kidding,” Josh says.
Every house has its sound—like the way it breathes. Some homes whistle, like when windows are left barely open and the wind blows. Some homes creak. Some homes sigh. It all depends on which way the house faces, how thick the windows are, what the house is made of. I listen. This is a creaker—cracked-open windows facing east. A wooden cabinlike home next to the mountains, the hush of pine needles brushing against the windows, occasional pelts of sap making soft thudding sounds like thick patters of rain. The rumble-snore of the dog adds to the sounds.
It’s a quiet kind of noisy—the kind of place too easy to get spooked, panicked. But when I take a minute to listen, it’s like getting to know the house and its secrets. And I know how to filter the sounds.
I scan the room—a typical mess of Barbies and stray puzzle pieces, half-peeled crayons and Disney DVDs. I sift through the DVDs—in the pile there’s a
Cinderella
repeat with a cheaply photocopied
Cinderella
cover.
Rookies.
I pop open the DVD case.
Bingo!
We work our way through the rooms, rifling through the medicine cabinet, another five hundred dollars in an expired prescription bottle of Amoxil. We search through the spice rack and junk drawer—finding bits and pieces to add to the take.
Josh points to his watch.
I hold up ten fingers.
We hurry upstairs and start with the master bedroom—getting some petty cash from blue jeans lying on the floor, an envelope taped under the office desk drawer, and the typical countertop small change.
We both head to the master closet to search through jewelry boxes and shoes. I stop. Something isn’t right. Something feels different. The sounds of the house have changed. The automated radio has clicked off. The windows groan. Clouds have opened up to spatter rain—uneven pelts on windows.
The closet door opens.
She coughs. Josh and I lock eyes and turn around to see a little girl in pink pajamas, a rat’s nest of curls tied back in a ponytail. I’m not good with ages, but she can’t be more than seven years old. She wipes her nose, a tear dripping down her cheek. She’s holding a cell phone in her trembling hand. As soon as she gets a good look at us, she opens her mouth and wails.
It feels like somebody is pumping ice water through my veins, and my heart rate surges to try to push the half-frozen blood through my system. I’m quite certain my veins are spasming from the freakish hyper blood pump.
Josh grabs her phone and I wrap my arms around her, putting my hand over her mouth. I hold her tight. Too tight. “Shhhh,” I say. “Shhhh shhh shhh.”
She bites my hand and kicks her leg high, her heel landing on my bad knee, grinding into it. I yelp and fall to the ground, the little girl on top of me. She makes a run for it and Josh nabs her, passing her back to me. I lock my legs around her, my arm around her neck.
“Just stop it,” I say. “Just. Shut. Up.” I glare at Josh. She’s not supposed to be here.
Fat tears stream down her cheeks mixed with nose slime and that eucalyptus vapor rub smell. She’s one snotty kid. “You’re hurting me,” she whimpers.
“I’m so sorry. I really am. I’m just really nervous right now, you know.” I loosen my grip a little, just a little, and try to still the trembling in my hands, in my voice. “We won’t hurt you. But you can’t scream. Okay?”
The little girl nods. I loosen my grip more and feel bad because she’s peed herself. Josh yanks a shirt from a hanger and hands it to her. She cries so hard, she hiccups. I pass her the shirt. “What’s your name?”
“I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers.”
“Smart,” I say. “Smart. Um. How old are you?”
“Seven and four months.”
“Okay. We’re going to go now. We have to leave you in here, but someone will find you as soon as they get home, okay?”
“Can I call my mom?”
Josh and I exchange a glance. “We have to take your cell phone right now. But how about this, why don’t I call her when we get out of the house?”
The little girl nods and coughs, sounding like she’s been a smoker for fifty years.
“Do you, um, need any medicine in here? Water?”
She nods. “My inhaler is in my bedroom.”
Josh brings her an inhaler, a clean set of clothes, and a couple of stuffed animals. “To keep you company,” he says.
I look at my watch and flash Josh a zero.
He nods.
“Now, can you sit down over there?” I point to a little chair at the end of the closet and flick on the lights. “See. It’s nice in here with the lights on. You’ll be okay. Someone will be home soon. Real soon.”
Her bottom lip quivers.
We pull the closet door behind us. I expect a scream but only hear quiet crying behind the door. I pause. Josh shakes his head. “We’ve gotta go.”
We run down the stairs, out the back sliding door, jumping over the half-dead dog. In the yard, Josh hesitates, then spray-paints
BABYLONIA
on the fence, and we stick the manifesto between boards. At the bottom of the manifesto, I write a little note to the mom.
We cut back through the woods behind the house, running up the mountain a little until we’ve circled around, ending up at least a half mile or so from the house. Then we make our way down to one of the side streets. Lakeview is nothing but curvy roads, homes tucked next to the mountains, and thick pines. It takes us another twenty minutes of walking to get to Josh’s car. Sirens roar. I can see the blinking lights between the trees.
My head burns like someone’s poking it with a cattle prod—inside out. I touch my smooth skin, expecting to feel an upraised scar: Babylonia.
How can everybody
not
see who I am?
When we get to the car, I slouch to the ground and cradle my head between my knees, counting until I can breathe steadily.
Scared of could’ve beens, might bes.
JOSH DRIVES US OUT TO
Clear Creek. We sit on his hood, covered in a blanket, watching the stars, sipping on beer. At first, I felt like everything was mine. But then the little girl came and I can’t shake the chill, this feeling of emptiness. Mrs. Mendez and Luis Sanchez are still dead. Caleb Masterson still needs a kidney transplant. He lost his football scholarship to some college in Texas. I almost hurt a little girl. I can still smell that eucalyptus scent she had in her hair, on her cheeks.
I almost hurt her
.
And Josh still hasn’t kissed me. There’s got to be some kind of posttraumatic bad kiss disorder. I’ve ruined him for life.
“The little girl,” I say.
“She’s okay.”
“I could’ve hurt her.”
“You didn’t.”
“What if she hadn’t stopped screaming?”
“She did.”
Silence. Then I say what both of us probably have wondered but never have had the nerve to say, afraid to say. Because who will I be when this is over? Who will
we
be? “How many more?” The cold just won’t leave.
What if I never get that high again?
I take a long drink and fight to keep from spitting it out.
Beer is gross
. “It’ll never be enough.”
“It’s not only about the money.” Josh looks up at the sky. “Our lives mean something because we’re
doing
something. We’re helping.”
Josh leans back on his windshield and pulls me to him, my head settled on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. We stay there, watching the stars in the indigo March sky for what feels like forever.
“Ready to go?” Josh says. “Did you finish your beer?”
I put down my almost-full beer can. “Liquid aluminum with a bitter aftertaste.”
“You kidding? You don’t like beer?”
I hand him my can. “No.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Josh says, drinking down his can, then mine. His breath smells yeasty. “Crazy Thursday night, huh?”
I try to keep the feeling of just a couple of hours ago—the feeling of right. It’s so clear when we’re doing it—like we’re doing the right thing. But out here . . . I don’t know. I slip off the hood and stare up at the blue-black sky one more time, trying to push away the weight of insignificance.
I can’t sleep. It’s not late. Lillian’s at the clinic. So I drive up to Saint Mary’s in Reno and slip past the nurses’ station, finding Caleb’s room. The place has that sickening rose/carnation-that-masks-urine smell to it. Flowers, Mylar balloons, and teddy bears explode from every corner. There’s a poster-size picture of him with his best friends in tuxedos hanging up. The place looks like a shrine. Store wrapped and neat.
“Are you a friend?” a woman asks. I didn’t see her tucked in the 1-800-FLOWERS décor. She’s sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair near the foot of Caleb’s bed. “It’s late.” She sounds defensive. “He’s sleeping.”
“Is he okay?” Stupid question. Stupid stupid stupid.
She doesn’t try to wipe the tired look from her eyes. “No.”
The answer hangs in the air. No.
“He will be, though,” she says.
I nod.
“Can I tell him who stopped by?” she asks, but I’m already out the door, rushing to the parking lot. I never stopped by Luis’s hospital room—never even bothered to ask Moch if he was okay. I drive home on auto-pilot, don’t even remember going through Washoe Valley, ending up at Moch’s house.
I tap on his window. “Moch? Moch, are you there?”
After what feels like forever, the curtains part. He looks at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
Moch comes outside. “
¡Qué frío tan hijo de puta!
Come inside. I’m not going to hang out in this cold.”
Moch’s house is unusually quiet. When I walk in the door, the familiar smells almost bowl me over. Tears prick my eyes.
I follow him in the trailer house, though it doesn’t feel much warmer. He plugs in a space heater in the living room and throws me a blanket. “Your lips are purple.” We huddle around it, holding our hands as close to the grill as possible. I listen to the
tick tick tick
as it heats up, and orange warmth glows on Moch’s face. His silver Saint Pablo hangs from a dog tag–like chain, resting against his sternum. After a while he flips it around—the heated metal burning his bare skin.
“Lots of bets?” he asks.
“March Madness. You haven’t been back at school,” I say.
“Busy.”
“Are you going to graduate?”
Moch shrugs. “Does it matter?”
We both know it does. We sit in silence, listening to the neighbors fight, dogs snarl and bark. A car backfires. A stillness settles in me, one I haven’t felt in a long time. Sitting here, warming up—this fits. Like this home is who I am, my history.
I lean my head against the couch, smelling her—the cinnamon, baked-crust smell mixed with bleach. Way different from the microwaved cardboard smell from my house. This is warmth. This is what I want back.
“It was an initiation,” Moch says. “Pick a fight with Garbage Disposal and you can be in la Cordillera.”
It takes me a second to realize he’s talking about Luis.
“He died because of me.” Moch twirls his chain around his fingers, not taking his eyes off the space heater.
His words settle in me like frost. No matter how close I get to the space heater, I can’t get warm. I shiver. Moch looks at me through thick black lashes, like I’m worthy of his confession; like I can make any of it right.
The house is a decaying limb—a dingy gray place where people barely exist. I try not to breathe in the fading cinnamon smells because it makes her not being here so much harder. We’re all slipping, falling, and just trying to hold on.
I stand to go. Moch turns to me. “I’m not sure where to go.”
I bite my lip before saying, “Babylonia.” I lean over and give Moch an awkward hug. “I miss her. It’s hard to miss someone alone.”
Moch nods. “I know.”
Making sense out of senselessness. Futile.
Babylonia Leaves Parent a Report Card: “U”nsatisfactory on All Counts
NCAA Games Heating Up
Babylonia and Dental Hygiene
SETH HAS AN ENTIRE SECTION
dedicated to what he believes is Babylonia’s dental hygiene routine. In the Sunday
Appeal
, they reported the little girl mentioned that Babylonia had cinnamon breath and wore ugly ski masks. Seth goes on saying such damning evidence will surely trap the thieves. “Who, I mean,
who
chews cinnamon gum?” he asks.